Downloading the game and paying for it?

[Cilar]

Also remember that Europe != {France, Germany, UK}. There're maaany more countries in Europe you know. Getting game from online shop in different country is also, in many cases, out of question - handling fee, customs & other taxes can make your game incredibly expensive, not to mention potential parcel stealing.

1) There are many retailers on this page http://www.ryzom.com/?page=order for most of the european countries.
2) There is neither customs not other taxes within the European Union. Maybe it's about time to realize there is no border anymore (apart in very few cases) inside the EU.

[zebidie]

They need the retailers at release because they get advertising in store along with it. Once the inital roll out is done I'd be surprised not to see an online order option. Eve-Online did that too and TBH moving to online purchase was a fantastic move, they virtually doubled thier playerbase in a week. But... They couldnt have launched like that, they needed the free advertising that the retailers gave them to get it rolling. After a month tho they dropped thier publishers and took it all in house and moved to the online distribution method. Hopefully SoR will do the same

[qu0zl]

True, but I wouldn't be surprised if UK customs slapped taxes on anyway. And if they do, it'll be an obscene amount - when I imported CoH from the States, I paid about £30 for the gme itself, IIRC, and then £7-ish tax, as well as £10 tax handling - I had to pay them to pay them. Hate UK customs.

The United states is not part of the EU. There won't be customs duties if you buy the game from germany like I did. Welcome to the new europe

Greg